I'm not the kind of person to wake up easily, but whatever that synthetic blaring was, it did the trick. The sudden noise had me straining against my harness, simultaneously trying to blink the goo from my eyes and prevent the sudden cascade of light from overwhelming me.

Harness?

I was sitting down, which wasn't helping me make sense of my situation. I couldn't remember any specific instance where I'd ever been tired enough to sleep in a car seat. Hell, I couldn't remember a time I'd ever sat in something that required a full body harness, as opposed to a seatbelt.

"Error: datanet uplink not found. Restoring from last configuration."

I was certainly awake now. Beyond the synthetic voice, I could hear the hum of air conditioning and the rustle of my clothing. Which was odd in itself, but I'd already determined I'd fallen asleep under strange circumstances, so it wasn't surprising.

By now, I was certain my eyes had adjusted to the sudden light, so I allowed myself to begin examining my situation. There were too many culprits for the unwelcome luminance that had blinded me earlier: Arrayed in front of me was a dashboard so wide and saturated that something at the back of my mind begin to panic. Sure, I understood steering, gas, brake, clutch, etcetera, but there were far too many dials, switches, readouts and lights! Sure, everything was labeled, but the jargon was so beyond my comprehension that it might as well been for some occult ritual. The panic deepened, but I could ignore it. It wasn't like I was expected to operate… whatever this was.

The sky was dark, but the vehicle had some exterior lights which illuminated my environment clearly. The ground was harsh, loose and gravely. I could pick out individual pebbles, splintery remnants of branches, and other debris. The lit ground and horizon terminated way too soon, so my vehicle must be facing some sort of ridge. My eyes drifted further upwards, but not before darting back down to the ground before me. As my head moved, various particles seemed to shimmer from among the debris. Something in the soil was reflecting the light back at me.

Above the windscreen, a trio of rugged-looking computer monitors hung, bathing the entire compartment in a bluish glow. The ones on either side of the central monitor were blank, but the center one…

The ambient sounds of machinery and electronics were briefly drowned out by my sharp intake of breath. In the center of the monitor spun a stylized image of a diving falcon. It was the iconic symbol of Command and Conquer, I'd recognize that emblem anywhere.

GDI.

What?

Then, the memories from when the ROB talked to me entered my mind. The way I had to negotiate for my safety and for his entertainment lingers in my mind for awhile before a calming wave washed over me. Finally, it all makes sense then.

The panic was gone, and my eyes ran over the gigantic dashboard. There had been text on the monitor, dim and relegated to a corner, like some debugging console.

Error: Philadelphia uplink unavailable: This server could not be found.

Error: Pentagon uplink unavailable. This server could not be found.

Error: Reykjavic uplink unavailable. This server could not be found.

Error: Tokyo uplink unavailable. This server could not be found.

Error: London uplink unavailable. This server could not be found.

Error: Lisbon uplink unavailable. This server could not be found.

There… was a lot more text then that, but it all followed the same format: X or Y server wasn't available. It wasn't surprising, considering what the computer's…EVA'svoice had stated earlier.

"Configuration description completed. Accessing credentials… successful."

My head rocketed back into my seat as a series of images appeared directly in front of me. The words "login authentication: SUCCESSFUL" danced in front of my eyes, before flickering out. At the edge of my vision, what I could only assume was more debugging messages flashed by, like some console that was floating in mid-air.

"The last recorded threat level was: Elevated. Welcome back, Commander."

The familiar threat meter appeared, once again superimposing itself between the dashboard and I. Experimentally, I waved my hand over the image, only to stare as the hand, which my brain was telling me was closer then the hologram, passed behind it. A projection, then?

"As the highest ranking officer in the Global Defense Initiative within the area of operations, you have been placed in command of all GDI forces in the area."

The list that appeared before me was disappointingly short. There was the familiar icon of an MCV, along with that of some unfamiliar drone design. Huh, I wonder what-

Without prompting, a grey slate appeared in front of me. Again, I jumped at its appearance, but I'd gotten fairly used to surprises at this point. I'd been looking over the drone, earlier, so this must have been some sort of feed from it.

Now that I was looking, I recognized the familiar texture of cloud cover, glowing from reflected moonlight. Not that useful, but if was some drone, surely...

There. On the bottom-right of the feed, the words NORMAL, AMPLIFIED, INFRARED, FALSE COLOR, and RADAR were displayed, with a rectangle surrounding the words AMPLIFIED. That must mean some sort of night-vision camera, considering the sharp relief the clouds were in. With a thought that came oddly naturally, the border shifted to INFRARED. Immediately the clouds disappeared, and I found myself looking down on a scene from hell.

A gigantic impact crater dominated the camera feed. It was unmistakable as such. A ring of ejecta dominated the landscape, brilliantly bright in the thermal view. The entire rest of the landscape was dominated from fallen trees, arrayed away from the crater like some titan's iris. Something was generating uneven heat in the center of the crater, giving it's center an off putting texture.

I shifted the mode to FALSE COLOR, and froze. The cloud screen had returned, but that didn't mean I'd blinded myself. The blip on the edge of the crater had been replaced with a blue silhouette, superimposing the form of an MCV over the sheet of clouds. The crater itself, as well as almost the entire surrounding forest, was highlighted in a bright, alien green.

"Uh… EVA?" My voice cracked out, rough from unuse. With another thought, I waved the drone feed aside and focused on the ground in front of my vehicle.

"Sir?" The computer program intoned as the loose ground in front of me glittered.

"What, er…" Somehow, I was fairly sure about the answer to my upcoming question. The implications were causing a tightening in my chest that stimed my attempts to complete the sentence. "In the fa- false color mode on that drone's feed, what does the bright green stand for?"

"According to your current false color configurations, Tiberium is represented with a Chartreuse, or yellow-green color."

As the terror and panic I'd been suppressing throughout this ordeal finally asserted its control, I stared at the ground in front of me. Was it just me, or had the glittering before me intensified since I'd last looked?

"Incoming transmission." I heard EVA speak, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Huh?" I asked, as a projected screen appeared before me. The screen before me was blue, with the words 'Incoming Transmission' etched in the middle. "Oh, uh, a-accept transmission, I guess?"

EVA did was told, and a second later, I was talking to the guy that sent me here in the first place.

"Yo yo yoo! How's your morning been? Ya didn't dropped dead yet, right?" Eesh, hearing him with my voice is still making me cringe.

"W-well, aside from a a few hiccups when I f-first woke up, I-I'm fine." Yeah, I was just oozing with confidence.

Me ROB merely nodded sagely as he cupped his chin. "Yes, of course. It also appears that you found my little added bonus to ya?"

"If you mean the giant crater in front of me filled to the brim with Tiberium that is also emitting a green gas infused with that stuff, then yes. Also what the hell, man!" Seriously, Terra already has enough problems with their Originium. Adding Tiberium to the mix is just too much!

"Ah, don't worry about it. I reprogrammed the Tiberium so that it can only affect this general area only. It won't spread towards the entire globe, if that's what you're asking."

"Oh thank god." I breathed out.

"...Yet." Oh no. "But until then, your main purpose will be entirely about survival. Other than that, you're free to do whatever you wish."

"That's it?" That's a pretty small, and vague objective. But I'm pretty he also wants it to be entertaining for him.

"Precisely! So, go out there and do your best! Oh and one more thing, your cat's at your new sleeping quarters. Tata~" The transmission blinked out as the call ended. Well, at least I got my cat with me. Won't have to worry about him not getting fed while I'm gone.

The good news was that I was apparently a cyborg. Okay, I'd technically been a cyborg since I'd gotten my first tooth filling, but now I was the cool kind of cyborg. It wasn't obvious, as in my reflection on the screens above me didn't look particularly different than what I was used to, but I couldn't think of any other way the thought-controlled HUD I had could have worked. I didn't know if something was getting projected onto my ocular nerve or intercepting it before it reached by brain, but the fact I had it implied a lot.

If I had the kind of tech I'd expect in 30 years, I would have done a lot more than eye implants. The thought would have terrified me if I'd woken up in a Brotherhood uniform, but considering how the GDI was was set up I felt I could trust them on those sorts of things. I didn't want to make any assumptions, but I bet my current body had a lot of bells and whistles I lacked in the old world.

The fact that ROB had screwed with my body was considered good news should clue you in to how fucked up everything was. First off, my drone buddy could only pick up faint EM transmissions, and EVA had been trying and failing to pick up something from orbit, so I Terra probably don't have that much to offer. That also meant that there wasn't much of a chance anything I ran into being human or have anything that could deal with Tiberium.

Secondly, my guess that the impact had thrown Tiberium dust everywhere had been accurate. Even now, the fallen timber my vehicle had been rolling over had lost its natural color, many trees' bark flaking away to expose an unearthly green-speckled pale underneath. Some truly ancient trees seemed to have weathered the blast. The thick, knotted old things certainly didn't come out unscathed, though. One, already half dead, had split down the center, the blast tearing the dead growth from the living. The glassy texture the bark was taking implied the rest wouldn't be far behind. At least I got ROB assurance that it'll only affect this area only. Hopefully.

My MCV made a wide berth around a particularly gruesome specimen, as I found my eyes glued to a dead branch that seemed to slough away from its parent like melting wax. The flesh the newly-fallen branch exposed undulated and twitched far more than any plant had the right to. An iron spike implanted in the trunk seemed to drive itself from the from the tree, the wound in the ancient bark oozing a sickly-green sap as the metal tumbled to the soil below.

Jesus Christ.

I had a feeling I'd be seeing that again, next time I tried to sleep. The implications of mutating fauna and man-made objects were entirely overshadowed by the unsettling graphicness of the event and my desire to forget it entirely.

Perhaps the worst news, however, was that besides the intuitive implants I'd been blessed with, I had no idea how to operate anything. The thing I'd thought had been a clutch on the MCV wasn't one at all, which explained it's awkward position far too left of my regular legs. I'm not proud to admit I took me 15 minutes of EVA's dispassionate lecturing before I'd realized I'd been stomping on what she'd been referring to as the "deployment break." In hindsight, that made sense, as the MCV operated off of an electric drive system, but back in my day everything that had three petals was manual, damnit!

That wasn't the only problem I had with the MCV. Understandably, the thing was heavy, but even after I partially deflated the thankfully-wide tires the damp ground I was traversing over seemed like it it was on the verge of swallowing my vehicle entirely. Combined with it's width and painfully low ground clearance, that meant I was serenaded with the lovely undertones of dead branches, rocks, and other debris scraping the paint off the underside of my literally-priceless piece of military hardware. Maybe the uneven axle width was there to prevent the rear wheels from falling into the rut created by it's front wheels, as the rear-view camera feeds displayed on the monitors above me showed four massive gorges, flanked by the splinters of fallen trees and sprinkled with an alien dust. They still made turning a pain, though.

The seat wasn't exactly ergonomic, either, and since I hadn't really moved from it since I'd woken up there, the parts of me that weren't demanding I get something to eat or protesting over my sleeping position were demanding I got up andmoved. It wasn't like I was going to pop out and stretch my legs for ten, though, so there wasn't any use complaining.

Had I mentioned it had started raining ever since dawn? That cloud cover hadn't just been for show. I guess that meant the tiberium dust kicked up by the detonation wouldn't be traveling as far as it normally should, but I was feeling pretty pessimistic about now.

At least I could think straight, now.

It had taken a lot of valuable time to get my panic under control back there. Even now, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to contain the tiberium. There was just too many transmission vectors. Beyond the natural creep I had to contend with, there was tiberium dust, eroded from crystals by rainwater or wind. There were animals, who would flee from a field after getting infected, and leaving their crystallizing corpse in a den or nest somewhere. There were mutants, who would viciously tear apart any containment system that wasn't bristling with weapons. Subterranean veins would have to be dealt with, somehow, before the tectonic activity they caused turned the local area into a supervolcano. I was starting to understand why the blue zone walls were so imposing.

It was abundantly clear that, super-construction or not, one person couldn't keep up with all those problems at once. That meant that "plan A: stop the tib-rock from eating the planet" was probably doomed to failure. Probably. I wasn't the kind of person who wouldn't try something because it was impossible.

That thought brought my first chuckle since this ordeal started. Well, if the stakes were this high, I wouldn't.

I was liking "plan B: become a spaceman" a lot better. It had been a while since I'd been invested in Tiberium Wars lore, but I did know the space command uplink featured a launchpad, and that everything GDI used, including rocket fuel, was literally dirt-cheap. I didn't know if it launched a satellite or ballistic missile, but I reckon I could get something into orbit, if need be. Hell, I could get stuff into space using Firehawks, if push came to shove. With how disposable everything was, I didn't even need to die trying to land! The feasibility of plan B wasn't great, and working from "cheap satellites" to "orbital habitats" was a bit of a jump for a computer scientist, but I already had the technology, right?

Either way, I was going to have to try and deal with the infection I'd woken up in, and that couldn't start until I was outside the developing Red Zone. The tiberium was at its weakest right now, and if I was going to outpace it I needed to get building as soon as possible. I'd used my drone to map the current extent of the tiberium infestation, and placed a beacon on a plain to the northeast of the crater, where a combination of local geography and prevailing winds had carried the dust the farthest. Then, I'd had the drone blanketing the area with it's radar, trying to get a good map of what kind of geography I'd have to deal with. It wasn't like I was going to be afraid of giving away my position.

The good news was it looked fairly harvester-friendly. Beyond the crater itself and some rough ground to the south, I seemed to have landed in your typical countryside: shallow, rolling hills, wide planes, and regular patches of forest. That last part was a bit concerning, and meant that there would probably be many of those mutant trees (Bloat trees? Blossom trees?) to spread tiberium around, but from what I remembered GDI harvesters shouldered through forests like dry grass.

My memory was tested when my MCV cleared a ridgeline and found itself in the thick of a dying forest. Now that they hadn't been abused by a shockwave, I got my first good look at the flora of this world. My first impressions were of how… Terrestrial these trees looked, and beyond the odd crystal I was reminded of images from the Ardennes I'd seen. Despite the fact the forest seemed to be thinner then it was at the blast site, trying to power through them with the MCV was not a pleasant experience. It turns out trees are pretty sturdy things, and while running into one at full speed reduced it to splinters, six or so turned into a solid wall that sometimes required I throw the MCV into reverse, back up, and make another go at full speed. If I wasn't almost already out of the woods, I would have tried another path entirely. I certainly didn't like how that boded for the much lighter harvesters.

It took far too long, but eventually my MCV was out of the worst of the woods and rumbling along grassland. It had been about six hours since I'd woken up, and already tiberium was beginning to take its toll. Wide swaths of the plain had degraded to an unhealthy yellow, with the occasional green glow peeking through. Beyond the discoloring, the artificial beacon I'd set down hovered in my augmented vision, representing when I could finally escape this cockpit and stretch my legs. Beyond that lay healthy grassland, interrupted only by… was that a road?

A/N: Yooo! First official chapter is now out! Hope ya'll enjoy this along with the Prologue. There will be more to come, so just be patient.Oh and one more thing to add, Dwane here won't be paired with someone. ...yet.